AR-RPM9 Thread

I really liked the recent Artisan Biome so I decided to order a Sea Snake to see how it is.

Overall, pretty nice knife! Smaller than I was expecting, but that's on me, lol. Fit and finish is great. Grind is great. Blade is REALLY sharp. I'll try to put it through it's paces here soon. I'm not expecting the AR-RPM9/PM 9cr to be mindblowing, but it should hold up pretty well.

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Fixall said:
I really liked the recent Artisan Biome so I decided to order a Sea Snake to see how it is.

Overall, pretty nice knife! Smaller than I was expecting, but that's on me, lol. Fit and finish is great. Grind is great. Blade is REALLY sharp. I'll try to put it through it's paces here soon. I'm not expecting the AR-RPM9/PM 9cr to be mindblowing, but it should hold up pretty well.
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These just showed up at my favorite retailer today so I ordered one. I'm cautiously optimistic. I've been pretty happy with 9Cr18Mov from brands that treat it well. It seems to hold an edge longer than it should based on its reputation. Of course, I used to view it differently when my only experience came from brands like Schrade. It was Civivi that turned me around on 9Cr18Mov. I've also had positive experiences with Real Steel.

Finding an EDC knife I really like under $50 is great because I can buy a back-up. When Outpost 76 asked for loaners to test in 9Cr18Mov, I was glad to send him my back-ups. Obviously, he is testing a particular edge on a particular medium but that allows for standardized results. If anyone is familiar with his numbers for common production knives in Chinese D2, S35VN, etc.; these numbers might blow a few minds...

 
Fixall said:
I really liked the recent Artisan Biome so I decided to order a Sea Snake to see how it is.

Overall, pretty nice knife! Smaller than I was expecting, but that's on me, lol. Fit and finish is great. Grind is great. Blade is REALLY sharp. I'll try to put it through it's paces here soon. I'm not expecting the AR-RPM9/PM 9cr to be mindblowing, but it should hold up pretty well.
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Fixall, can the handle slabs be easily removed or are they glued on too?
 
Smoke said:
Fixall, can the handle slabs be easily removed or are they glued on too?
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That's a good question... And one I should have found the answer to before I bought the knife considering the main reason I purchased it was because I thought it would be a nice/easy platform to whip up some new scales for, lol.

The scales are removable. However, they use a crappy sleeve/screw setup that allows the screws to spin freely. You will need two T8 Torx bits. The screws are also probably the lowest quality screws I've dealt with. None of my Wiha bits fit perfectly, but the T8's were closest. I didn't strip mine, but I think that came down to luck. I imagine if I took the scales off and on more than a couple times, the screws would very likely be stripped in no time.

I'm going to look for some replacements when I make some scales for the knife. It would've been necessary anyway since I plan on making the scales just a tad thicker (the G10 is pretty thin).

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I got my Artisan 1845p in RPM9 blade steel. It is an impressive knife for under $50!! I’ll e sure to post more as it gets used and carried.
 
PM versions of existing compositions is really too common to wonder about. Anyone ever own a knife in rwl34, cpm154, cpm d2, cpm m4, maybe the old 440c modified that later got called s60v.
 
hardheart said:
PM versions of existing compositions is really too common to wonder about. Anyone ever own a knife in rwl34, cpm154, cpm d2, cpm m4, maybe the old 440c modified that later got called s60v.
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The uncommon thing here is the price. This is a PM version of an already decent budget steel. They're using it in budget knives at budget prices.

Some of these models are priced very similarly to the initial Civivi offerings in 9Cr18Mov. I'm curious to see how the steel compares. Michael Emler had positive things to say about the toughness and corrosion resistance. Does anyone do scientific or carefully controlled testing on those qualities? As far as edge retention, I'm sending a Sea Snake over to Outpost 76. (His 9Cr18Mov video is linked a few posts up.)
 
Well, I sent a few knives to Outpost 76 for testing. We got the results. Here is my take and a brief synopsis but I'd encourage you to watch the full video if you are interested.

While we don't have hardness numbers, the steel seems soft on these knives. Sharpening was easy but deburring was a pain. It took several sharpenings to see improvement on that. Once he had a good edge on it, he did his usual testing with 1" of blade on cardboard. Repeatable results were achieved. Overall, this steel behaves a bit like VG-10. That's okay. Besides the sharpening issues though, we've got another problem. Compare these numbers with the earlier results for 9Cr18Mov.

Overall edge retention was similar to Real Steel's 9Cr18Mov. The AR-RPM9 did a little worse on fine edge but held a better working edge. Considering that this is a PM steel based on 9Cr18Mov, that's disappointing. What makes it a lot worse is that it fell short of Civivi's 9Cr18Mov. Civivi seems to do an excellent heat treatment on their 9Cr18Mov. Civivi's 9Cr18Mov beats most of the Chinese D2 under these test conditions and does as well as some of the "budget super steel". So is this new steel a fail or did Artisan just fail to give it a good heat treatment?

 
thank you for reporting back... you should try the fixed blade 'sea snake' from them, I'm curious if it's the same
(or any other different model)

too bad if this is the general result, it would be a missed opportunity
 
Chronovore said:
Artisan released the composition of AR-RPM9. If you have an Instagram account, you can see the video here. (This finally pushed me to make an account over there.) The video cuts off before listing the "rare earth" content. I posted to ask for clarification. Anyway, here is what we know for now:

0.9% Carbon
18% Chromium
1.0% Molybdenum
0.45% Manganese
0.1% Vanadium
0.3% Cobalt
0.2% ~ 0.8% Silicon
< 0.4% Nickel

This is interesting. Minus the cobalt, this ingredient list falls somewhere between Actuo 440 and 9Cr18Mov. Given my experiences with the former from Kizer's budget line and 9Cr18Mov from both Civivi and Real Steel; I'd definitely be interested in exploring a fine-grained PM steel in that ballpark.
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The cobalt here is interesting, maybe a similar approach to VG10? Here is a comparison between 9cr18mov and VG10 http://zknives.com/knives/steels/steelgraph.php?nm=9Cr18MoV,VG-10&ni=860,4001&hrn=1&gm=0
 
dirc said:
you'd think with all the trouble of getting a patent, they'd come up with something with more than 0.1% vanadium...
if the other rare earth is Nb, then it could be more interesting... but if its just a pm version 9cr18mov then I don't get it

I wouldn't pay a premium for it, personally
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Because the PM properties would make for a much finer less toothy edge than youd get from garden variety 9cr18mov.

That being said I'm a huge fan of 9 CR 18 mov. It's basically a Chinese version of 440c and I always loved 440c it was the super steel before super steels arrived on the scene I'm not a fan of 440a or 440 b but 440c is a great working steel as decent edge retention decent toughness I always had a lot of luck with it if it was heat treated correctly. In 9cr 18 mov and a particle steel would put a scary sharp blade on something that you could probably sharpen fairly easily I equate it almost I bet to like a 14c 28n which is another excellent steel I really love 14c28n it takes a really fine edge it's easy to sharpen and so if you have a particle metallurgy 9 CR 18 mov equivalent I think that would be awesome
 
FRNFanboy said:
Say what you like about Chinese steels, this stuff sure sharpens up nice!
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I was really impressed with the 9cr18mov. I had some cheap schrade sch57 or whatever it was and that knife stayed sharp ...due to its .250 width i pryed doors open with it , stuck window ac out of walls. I only broke the blade when using the cutting edge as a flathead screw driver and i had torqued it pretty hard before it failed. .

I was super impressed. And id paid like 36 bucks for it.
 
Gh0zt36 said:
I was really impressed with the 9cr18mov. I had some cheap schrade sch57 or whatever it was and that knife stayed sharp ...due to its .250 width i pryed doors open with it , stuck window ac out of walls. I only broke the blade when using the cutting edge as a flathead screw driver and i had torqued it pretty hard before it failed. .

I was super impressed. And id paid like 36 bucks for it.
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I’ve had no problem with 9cr18mov either. People turn their noses up because it doesn’t have amazing edge retention, but it performs in VG10 territory at a modest price.
 
FRNFanboy said:
I’ve had no problem with 9cr18mov either. People turn their noses up because it doesn’t have amazing edge retention, but it performs in VG10 territory at a modest price.
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With WE's heat treatment, the Civivi and Sencut knives in 9Cr18Mov offer amazing edge retention for the price. Even the more average knives in 9Cr18Mov can look amazing compared to 8Cr13Mov or lesser budget steels. It's all relative.

That was part of the issue here with AR-RPM9. While it might be tougher and there have been reports of it stropping up nicely, overall edge retention has been on par with the more average knives in 9Cr18Mov. WE's 9Cr18Mov held a noticeably better edge in early testing. That's both a testament to WE's heat treatment and a question for Artisan's. Are they getting the most out of this new steel? Could it offer more? Since it is proprietary, we won't know unless they do. If they don't, that seems like a colossal waste for this whole project.

If anyone has experience using or sharpening newer models in AR-RPM9, please share those experiences here.
 
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